Friday, June 20, 2014

NOAA is currently considering a petition to expand the critical habitat
for the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. Public comments are
due by June 24 - amazingly, they have received fewer than 200 comments
as of this post, while the recent petition to include Lolita under the
ESA listing generated almost 20,000 comments. Please consider taking a
moment to send in your thoughts: the result could mean expanding the
SRKW critical habitat from just Washington inland waters to including
most of the outer coast where they are known to forage. Some potential
talking points:

We have more data than ever before to show where
SRKWs are spending the entire year (including satellite tag data from
recent years)

It's important to protect their year-round habitat, not just their summer habitat, if they are to recover

SRKWs are spending less time in inland waters than they used to,
particularly in the spring, making it even more necessary to extend
habitat protection to the rest of their range

All the info you need can be found here. The top link on the page will take you to the comment form.

Here are the comments I submitted this afternoon:

Since 2006 when the
original Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) critical habitat was
designated, we have obtained much more data showing how, where, and
when these orcas use the outer coast. Our knowledge of coastal
habitat use by SRKWs has increased dramatically via NOAA's winter
coastal cruises, satellite tagging, acoustic monitoring, and
additional well-documented public sightings. I strongly believe these
data are sufficient to warrant NOAA accepting the proposed petition
and expanding the SRKW critical habitat from the inland waters of
Washington to include the proposed range on the outer coast from Cape
Flattery, WA to Point Reyes, CA.

Endangered species only
have a chance at recovery if we consider them in an ecological
context, including protection of the entire habitat that makes up
their range. Presently, SRKWs only have their core summer habitat
protected. It is unreasonable to expect them to recover unless we
extend protections to include what we now know are important areas
for them for much of the year. Researchers have believed in the
importance of the outer coast to SRKWs for decades, and data
collected in the last eight years have done nothing but support what
we have long suspected. This additional information makes it apparent
that the proposed outer coast critical habitat range is essential to
the whales' survival and recovery, meeting the ESA definition of
critical habitat.

Additionally, in recent
years (since about 2007), SRKWs have been spending less time in
inland waters, particularly in the spring months (see attached
graphs). Figure 1 shows a dramatic decline in SRKW visits to the
Salish Sea in the month of April, and Figure 2 shows a similar trend
for the month of May, both potentially correlated to depressed
Chinook salmon spring returns to the Fraser River. Quite simply, if
the whales are spending less time in the Salish Sea, their present
critical habitat, they are spending more time elsewhere, making it
even more important to protect these habitats that are serving an
increased importance to them.

I hope you will take all
the additional data collected into consideration and will make the
decision to expand the SRKW critical habitat as proposed in this
petition.

You may recall the graphs I'm referring to as I've posted them recently on this blog. Here they are again:

Figure 1: Number of days Southern
Residents were seen in the Salish Sea in the month of April (blue),
with data from The Whale Museum's Orca Master data set (1990-2012)
and Orca Network sighting reports (2013-2014). Total escapement of
Fraser River spring Chinook of both the age-1.3 and age-1.2 runs
combined (orange). The Chinook abundance numbers were estimated off
graphs in the Pacific Salmon Commission technical reports. Circled in
green is where I things seemed to change – in 2007.

Figure 2: Number of days Southern
Resident Killer Whales were present in the Salish Sea in the month of
May (blue) from The Whale Museum's Orca Master data set (1990-2012)
and Orca Network reports (2013-2014) with a red trendline. Average
catch per unit effort (CPUE) for the month of May for Chinook Salmon
on the Fraser River's Albion Test Catch fishery (orange) with a green
trendline. Notes on CPUE data: No test catch data available from
2007. 2001 data is from 25 days, 2002 data is from 24 days, all other
years are an average of all 31 days of May.

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About Me

I'm a wildlife photographer, nature writer, and marine naturalist. I focus mostly on orcas and birds, but am curious about all things in nature. In 2007 I graduated from Reed College with a degree in biology, where I focused on animal behavior and evolutionary ecology and completed my senior thesis on killer whale bioacoustics. Also in 2007 I published my first book, Orca Encounters: Images of Southern Resident Killer Whales. I'm one of the founding members of the Salish Sea Association of Marine Naturalists (SSAMN). You can always reach me at monika.wieland at gmail.com.

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